Damp Monday – Plants in the Yard

Monday – May 30th, 2022 – Dave’s Birthday –

Plants on and alongside the porch

– “May 30, 2022 – Plants on and alongside the porch” –

— It was supposed to rain today – I gave up on ideas of doing anything in the yard and went back to bed.

— I woke up a little later, when the sun was shining, and fell back to sleep.

Rose Tree with Bud - And Purple Smoke Tree In the background

– “Rose Tree with Bud and Purple Smoke Tree In the Background” –

— When I woke up a third time and stayed awake, there were raindrops on the garbage can lid and on the hood and windshield of our car.

— The neighbourhood smelled like lilacs and I found a bud on our new Rose Tree { Hard to see in the photo above }.

Purple Smoke Tree

– “Purple Smoke Tree” –

— We got this Purple Smoke tree last year and it had blooms, but after we transplanted it here – it changed its priorities from showing blooms to building its root system and adjusting to its new home. This year it has hints of several blooms, but it’s too soon to see them in anything like their full glory.

Plants On Outside Porch

– “Plants on our outside Porch and a bit of the North-Side Yard” –

— Plants on our outside porch with our yard in the background – including part of our woodshed { behind the blue tarp } and a glimpse of the stone wall holding back a hill.

Closeup of tall plant with variegated leaves.

– “Closeup of the tall plant with some variegated leaves on the outside porch” –

— The tall plant on our outside porch has leaves that come in variegated and then settle back to remain green.

Hostas and another plant in the smaqllish garden north of our porch

– “Hostas & another plant or two or five in the smallish garden outside our entry porch” –

— Hostas took over out gardens in Connecticut when I was growing up – but up here it seems like starving mother deer sneak into our yard and chow down on hostas so they have a natural gardening ‘service’ that keeps them in check 🙂

– – – – – Gotta be enough for tonight …

~~~~~ Jim

 

Adventures In Car Buying – 2022

– Monday – April 4th, 2022 —> +9˚C / +48˚F Sunny & Breezy in our little corner of Atlantic Canada –

 

2 people looking at a new Nissan Rogue

– “Cathi with Oscar the salesman – learning about her new Nissan Rogue” –

— I haven’t had a lot of positive experiences, shopping for either new or used vehicles. { Scroll down if you really want to read the ‘sordid horror stories’ }

— So, when our thirteen year old Dodge Grand Caravan refused to start for the first time ever on the second week in March of this year – I kind of gritted my teeth and agreed with the love of my life that we should at least look at the possibility of getting a new vehicle. { it turned out that the Grand Caravan only needed a jump, but the only thing we could figure out might have drained the battery was a light that should have turned itself off when we turned the engine off and left the vehicle. }

— We looked at a couple local dealer’s ads and web sites and thought what was going on at Fredericton Nissan during the month of March looked really good. I went to You tube and watched several videos highlighting the newest Rogue and its features.

— The love of my life, *Cathi, looked through several vehicles listed on the the Fredericton Nissan web site and really liked the blue colour that the Rogues and Qashqais  came in – and saw what the listed prices were and realized that the payment schedules she checked out were affordable { * Calling Cathi my ‘wife’ kind of sticks in my throat, she’s so much more than anything that could be limited to the usual definitions associated with ‘wife’. }

— Cathi tried to send a message through the web site – asking when we could come in and schedule a chance to look at and possibly take a test drive. And I guess there was some kind of glitch with the web site’s messaging routine – they might not have gotten the message – but anyway – after we hadn’t heard from them in several days, Cathi asked me to call them while she was busy during the busiest weeks of the year at her high-pressure job.

— I called and Oscar answered, identified himself and asked how he could help me, I told him we’d tried to contact the dealership through the web site and hadn’t heard back and we wanted to look at buying a new vehicle from them. He asked when we might want to come in – I asked him to hold for a second or two and had Cathi pick up an extension phone and we both talked for a couple minutes – and made an appointment for that Friday afternoon.

— That Friday, Cathi, who is working on Vancouver, BC time – took a long lunch break and we drove to the dealership and talked to Adam as Oscar wasn’t in that day – We ‘auditioned’ a Qashqai and discovered that, in the passenger’s seat, I had no headroom. But when I sat in a Rogue I had plenty of headroom. We wanted features that the “S” model didn’t include – but the SV was being test driven so Adam let Cathi take the keys to an “S” model and we went for a short drive to the nearby mall’s parking lot and drove around and she discovered that it was a lot easier to park the Rogue than it was for her to park the Grand Caravan. She also drove it to one of the nearby “round-abouts” and liked the way it handled and turned more smoothly than the Grand Caravan could.

— When we got back to the dealership, Adam told us that a model with the engine and features we wanted was on its way back in from its test drive and I told Adam about the horror stories I’d experienced with dealerships and repair shops and he didn’t roll his eyes and make me feel like a fool about any of that, and I told him that it was a real pleasure to talk to him and the other friendly faces we saw and interacted with at that dealership. One other salesman helped me figure out the coffee maker – which was more complicated than the similar model I had been  familiar with.

— The Rogue with the features we wanted and the ‘turbo’ engine we wanted came in and Adam let me leave my half consumed coffee in his office and set us up in that Rogue and we went for a shorter test drive and found that that model with that engine had an even smoother ride – and we were hooked. 🙂

— When we got back and Cathi said that she really hoped we could get a blue Rogue, Adam told us that not many of this year’s Rogues were coming through with the blue exterior paint – and also said that a new shipment was due in that evening and if there was a blue “SV with All Wheel Drive” in that shipment he would put a hold on it – and let us know, hopefully on the next Monday.

— We didn’t hear from anybody on Monday, or Tuesday – and before I guessed I better call on Wednesday – we heard from Oscar – who apologized and told us that Adam had caught a mild illness from his kids and asked if we could come in the next day – Thursday to talk to their finance guy – Cathi explained that Thursday was the end of the fiscal year and everybody and their relatives were calling her with emergency requests related to her job – but – yeah, we could come in during her lunch break.

— Before we talked to the finance person, Oscar told us that it had been impossible to get a blue Rogue in time to qualify for the month long March special that came with the price we had been impressed by – And, if we chose to wait for the next production run, it might be months before we might not be able to get a blue one then. He also told us he had earmarked a “Gunmetal Grey Silver” SV with All Wheel Drive for us – which was being processed behind the scenes – and had us look at an ‘S’ model with that colour that they had in their parking lot and Cathi thought that was much better than what she’d been afraid a grey model would look like. – We then went back inside and experienced the least stressful interview I’d ever experienced with the dealership’s financial guy, Steve, – who realized that Cathi had our most intelligent questions and did not ignore her and try to talk to me like she couldn’t possibly understand the complicated ‘guy’ things involved with buying a new vehicle. I was impressed. { This is after I was stunned when a Canadian Doctor, head of the Child Psychology department at a famous Toronto Kids’ hospital – talked to me like she wasn’t even in the room when we were there to talk about her son’s problems with compulsiveness and frustration. And I’d heard horror stories where a friend who’d had a credit card on her own, long before she’d gotten married, when she was getting a legal separation from her husband, wanted to take his name off her card – was shocked and dismayed  when the bank that had issued that card to her told her she would have to have her soon to be ex-husband’s permission in writing and preferably in front of a bank officer – before they could remove his name from her card.  }

— Working with the sales people and the financial person at the Fredericton Nissan Dealership was an absolute pleasure – and I told them so.

— Oscar got in touch early the next morning and told us that Cathi’s new car was there and was ready for us to come in and pick it up – When Cathi said she was hopelessly tied to her office dealing with all the absolutely critical details she had to get out of the way before the end of the work day – and her work day would end at 7:00 pm our time – or later – Oscar told us he could drive the new Rogue out to us and drive back our 13 year old Grand Caravan during Cathi’s lunch break. —> And he did exactly that.

New Nissan Rogue in Driveway.

– “Cathi smiling at her new Nissan Rogue in our driveway.” –

Shiny new Rogue in our Driveway - shot from the street.

– ” Shiny new Rogue in Early morning light in our driveway – photographed from the road.” –

= = = = =

—> Okay, the sordid back story begins here:

—> U.S.A. memories:

— When I went with a friend who wanted to look at the then new styled Volkswagen ‘Bus’ – when they first changed from the iconic ‘Hippy Vans’ to the more ‘modern’ shape of vans. A salesman sneered at the two of us and said, “I can’t even get one of those, You certainly couldn’t get one.” Made us feel like he thought we were 3rd or 4th class citizens – and he didn’t think we had a right to be in his showroom.

— When Subarus had just been introduced to the U.S.A. – I went to the first Subaru dealer in my home town in Connecticut and when I sat in the driver’s seat – I couldn’t sit up straight and my right foot touched both the gas pedal and the brake – I complained about that to the salesman hovering at my side, and he said, “You’ll get used to that-”

— My cousin who was taller than me { I was 6’3″ – he was more like 6’4 & 1/2″ and weighed closer to 300 muscular pounds while I was probably about 125 pounds. } stopped in to a Datsun dealer in the town across the river from where I lived while I was along for the ride.  I Was looking at a Datsun Pickup truck while my cousin was talking to a salesman near one of their vehicles that were identified with numbers back then, I think he was looking at a “510” – Another Datsun salesman came over to me and smiled, “Looking for a pickup truck?” – I pointed to my cousin and said, “I’m here with my cousin – and I can’t afford a new car or truck right now.” The salesman shrugged, did not sneer at me, said, “Go ahead and sit in it if you want – Come back when you’re ready to buy -” I sat in the smallish truck and I was amazed to discover that I had headroom, and said so to the salesman – He smiled and responded, “I was impressed by these vehicles myself.” —> That might have been the most positive interaction I ever had with a new car salesman up to that point.

— The first new car I bought was an Oldsmobile “J” car – The salesman looked like he was trying not to wince when I asked him about the car and reluctantly took my information and went to his financial guy – came back after I’d walked around with my baby sister and looked at several other vehicles – feeling it couldn’t hurt to window shop – { and that Oldsmobile dealership had a special, “Fifteen hundred dollars trade in for anything you can push pull or drag in for this special deal,” going on at that time – } The salesman came back, looking like he was in shock and said, “You must have amazing good credit! You’ve been approved!” – That was probably my second best experience back then. —> But that was in the days when banks were laying off employees like crazy and somebody who probably received a pink slip during work didn’t process one payment I’d made on time in one of that bank’s branches – and for the next six months I kept getting nasty letters from the bank saying I owed them that payment plus mounting interest – and once a month I went into the same branch of that bank with the cancelled check and talked to somebody different almost every time – and got an, “Oops, our mistake – you don’t owe us anything -” letter in the mail a couple days later – followed by another nasty letter demanding the payment they claimed I’d missed with its mounting interest – I finally refinanced through the Post Office Credit Union while I was working as a Postal Clerk – and when I went into the bank’s branch and told the last person that I’d dealt with there that I’d refinanced with my credit union – she looked broken hearted and apologized profusely. —> And then, as soon as the car was paid off – the automatic Transmission’s shifter’s knob came off in my hand while I down shifting on a steep hill.

—> Up here in Canada : —>

— When I first followed my heart and came to Canada – and was seriously applying to become a permanent resident first – before I could apply for citizenship – And while it was against the law for me { in my status as a visitor } to ‘take a job away from a Canadian’ – The woman I fell in love with – and who – amazingly – felt the same way toward me – convinced me that it wouldn’t be worth it to go through all the hassle of ‘importing’ the aging general motors hatchback I was driving at the time – We followed an ad to a used car dealer who had a silvery grey Mazda van. – The salesman asked if we wanted to go for a test drive, we said yes – and the salesman drove and wouldn’t let me or the woman I loved drive it – We got the van anyway – And encountered a series of problems when we tried to drive it on the 401 – { a limited access highway } through the Toronto, Ontario area – we learned that the warranty we’d purchased with the vehicle specified that we had to take the van to a specific repair shop – That repair shop charged us $3,000.00 plus – and ‘fixed the problem’ with duct tape. After we moved from the Toronto area to just west of the Ottawa city limits – a friend we made during that move took one look at the van’s engine and saw what the problem was, a hole in an air hose. We got a new hose and the van was a whole lot better – until we traded it in on a Jeep Liberty, that we picked up on the first day of the first job I could get after securing my permanent resident status.

= = = = =

— So Yes! Both Cathi and I really enjoyed dealing with everybody at the Fredericton Nissan dealership and every time we drove anywhere in the last few days we’ve been absolutely thrilled with that Nissan Rogue.

 

Cathi & Me happily celebrating in the Diplomat Restaurant.

– “Cathi & me celebrating our recent good luck at the Diplomat Restaurant on Woodstock Road.” –

— And I thank the people at Fredericton Nissan for helping restore my faith in automobile dealerships.

— Jim

February 6th, 2022 –

Sunday – February 6th, 2022 —> -8˚C /+17.6˚F @ 3:15 pm in Atlantic Canada – { Was my aunt Phylis’ Birthday 🙂 }

 

Draeydan & Shelley at Daybreak

– Latest couple of characters from my latest NaNoWriMo novel –

— { I was shocked to see how good the above screen shot looks on a gaming monitor. }

 

Path to Deer Hill

– Snow-Blown path from tool shed to ‘Deer Hill’ { Taken from squatting down low – The snow piles are not over our heads } – Photo taken yesterday, February 5th, 2022. –

— Um, we do not live in igloos in Canada – We do need air conditioners in the summer … { And “Wellington Court” was named after someone whose middle name was Wellington { Last name was Pond – The street began with five houses in a cluster – all inhabited by families related to each other – whose  last name was Pond. }

— Haven’t done much with my Genealogy blog —> https://aerendel.ca/DNA-Tree/ <— Looked up the spelling on my Aunt Phyl’s name and got lost – didn’t find it.

— The other night I was at my living room computer { One of several computers – the living room computer is hooked up to a really good set of speakers that we use to listen to live podcasts from time to time } — I heard something and turned to watch a colander jump up and slide down the wall behind our living room wood stove. … The love of my life subscribes to a friend’s Psychic podcast and has asked questions from time to time. … This house has some very unusual acoustic qualities. People talking to each other a couple streets away sound like they’re in the next room – I’ve heard our sadly deceased Labrador ‘Boof’ clipping down the hall now and then { and felt my favourite orange cat jump on my arm two years after he dropped his physical body and went off to play in the happy hunting grounds 🙂 } … a really sensitive psychic said that was because we live in a spot with a bowl shaped sort of spiritual amphitheatre – where curious inter-dimensional beings sometimes stop by to check the place out – when my love asked who played with the colander the psychic source rattled off a series of names including my cousin’s { Joan Pond’s } name – { Her birthday was last week – {{ Happy Birthday Joan! }}  } – Which prompted me to check out her net presence and she’s still with us {{{ Yay! }}} — But hey, if you’re  growing telekinetic talents – tell me about it, Cuz – }} {{{ Or was it one of the Ponds who lived on this street in the past dropping by and saying hello? }}}

— until next time…

~~~~~ Jim

Updating Characters as I’m re-writing here –

Thursday, December 2nd, 2021 —> +1˚C / +33˚F & the weather app thinks we’re experiencing ice pellets /sleet – but I don’t see that – @ 2:32 pm Atlantic Time.

Shelley Got Dressed

– “Shelley at Seventeen”  – Her comment? “The Green light makes my red hair look weird – But I like the glasses.” { & she got to choose her own clothes after a ‘nicer’ person got a hold of the game world software and let her make her own choices. – but that would fall under ‘spoiler alert’ -;) – } –

— Yeah, I wanted to find a more ‘character friendly’ ‘photo’ for the beginning of the story line – { Shelley didn’t have a say in what her avatar wore when her manipulating cousin scanned her in to the software at his university when she was fifteen – Then her cousin uploaded screen shots from the game and posted them – and back at her own school – the bullying ‘popular girls’ found the screen shots and added ammunition to their character assassination plot and wrote ‘Slut’ in very red lipstick on her locker with a printout of the original sexy screen-shot taped below that. }

 

Draeydan at seventeen

– “Draeydan at seventeen” { Shelley’s idea – after she found out she didn’t have to run around in the game world looking like she’d freeze to death at the slightest breeze – she had somebody help her scan Draeydan into the system and then she got to pick what he wore. 🙂 } His hair is darker than that – The computer guy admitted the software has a couple ‘glitches’. –

— Draeydan is not her manipulative cousin. He’s a supportive friend { maybe more than friends? – } & He probably wouldn’t want to be caught dead dressed like that –

 

Shelley in Faery Land

– “Shelley in Faery Land” { When her older cousin was controlling the backgrounds and not letting her pick her wardrobe. ) –

— The story begins in a ‘parallel word’ where the geography is pretty much the same as it is here – but a lot of names are different – History is slightly different – Benedict Arnold was revered as a hero and George Washington was hung as a traitor. The Capital of New York state is in the same place as Albany is here – but the city’s name is Springfield.

— And a lot of names are spelled differently –

— But bullies are still bullies and all these two sensitive kids want to do is survive high school – finding love along the way might help.

~~~~~ Jim

“What you see is Perception, Not the Truth” — Marcus Aurelius

— Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019 – -12˚C / +10˚F & cloudy in Atlantic Canada @ 11:11 am – & updated @ 4:35 pm Atlantic time = with -8˚C / +17˚F & ‘Heavy Snow’ falling here – according to my weather app. –
Red in the Morning.

– “Red in the Morning” – sunrise in Marysville, January 23rd, 2019 – 7:47 am – Atlantic Time –

— An opening line from the original “Kung-Fu” teevee series that stuck with me all this time: “To learn all there is to know about the good in this world, one lifetime is not enough – To learn all there is to know about evil – one hour is too much.” —> The Hindu model of the cycles of life in the material world – and they kept knowledge from rumoured golden ages when we on earth may have had technologies that dwarf what we have today – says that at about 500 AD we hit rock bottom in a 26,000 year cycle that effects our ability to think and reason and live – at rock bottom most ‘intelligent’ life on earth could only understand the purely physical. The ‘vibrations’ in that region of the material universe are so dense they make it nearly impossible to use our minds to anything like our full potential. — In about 1500 AD we progressed to the next level where most sentient life could understand the concept of electricity – electricity could travel through metal like water could travel through a sponge. { So maybe a soul could live inside a physical body? } — We may be approaching the next higher level – where most of us will understand that magnetism can control electricity and effect the physical aspects of life. { I’m not sure whether human consciousness goes up and/or down through 3 or 4 levels of understanding and ability to perceive and think – The Hindu model says we have seven physical ‘chakras’ or energy centers in our bodies. The lowest one is the sexual center – which actually operates on energy that is higher and finer than some of the higher centers. There is a reason that human beings feel ‘religious experiences’ during and just after sexual experiences – especially when higher emotion, like love, empathy, or appreciation, admiration, and stuff like that is involved. – But human consciousness can almost certainly evolve to the point where we can use our higher intellectual functions to control magnetism and thereby electro-magnetic currents and forces, etc. – The physical center is next up the ladder, then the lower intellectual center – {{ego}} Then the emotional center – {{ Emotions happen faster and at a finer level than ‘academic thought’ – You can’t control your emotions with your ego }} –  Then there’s the higher intellectual center – where creativity and inspiration come through – above that we become aware of ‘super-consciousness’ where ‘saints’ and psychopaths can tune in on ‘spooky interactions at a distance’ and perceive stuff going on in parallel dimensions and either believe they’re losing their minds or cross their fingers and hope they’re experiencing evolution on a personal level. – above that individuals discover ‘psychic’/’spiritual’ powers – like telekinesis and astral travel and all that fantastic stuff that pseudo science calls delusion, because if they haven’t experienced something – it doesn’t exist in their understanding and when their egos are empowered – they have to strike out and convince themselves that anybody who ‘believes’ in that kind of ‘nonsense’ must be delusional at best and psychotic at worst – and probably dangerous. – Dangerous to anybody with a closed mind and shaky grasp of what reality just might be all about. } { When you are fully identified with your sexual center, guess what you want to do? – When you are fully identified with your physical center you probably want to remain at rest forever – When you click in to your lower intellectual center you like to learn and quantify and label and count – When you click in to your emotional center – you want to hug a lot and nurture a lot & you may want to get even with real and/or imaginary slights by people you care about – or anyone who threatens those you care about. — When you click in to your higher intellectual center – you want to know who we are, where we came from, is there a God? Is there life after physical death – do our parents and teachers have any idea what is actually happening here? – And you start to get answers and hunger and thirst for more — When you click into your ‘higher emotional center’ you feel overwhelming love and compassion for all beings and want to communicate with Buddhas and Saints and Sages and Spiritual Masters – and you start by hoping that it is true that all true religious teachers have discovered that the ultimate Truth behind all Religions is constant and all the truly ‘enlightened’ ones agree completely on what Heaven and Earth are all about and the perceived differences between religious teachings come about because that ‘One Truth’ has to be described in terms that people in all the various cultures and levels of understanding can grasp and believe in. —> And there may actually be more and higher levels – but if you haven’t been ‘infected’ with the experience of slightly higher levels – and never had the kind of experience that really opens your eyes and heart and mind – you probably won’t believe there is anything out there or up there – so ‘They’ tell us ‘we can’t get there from here’ and if you try to stay on top of the ocean – you sink – and if you try to sink – you float { Thank You Allan Watts } – and if you spend time and energy trying to see into the Divine before you’re ready, all you’re going to get is frustration – so for now – just believe that unlimited consciousness and immortality in the depths of your consciousness is possible { but a few attitudes and ‘states of mind’ might need to change along the way – and you’ll have to wait and see what all that is like when it happens to you. } — The last big jump up for those of us in the material universe might come in a couple more thousand years when most of us understand that consciousness can control magnetism, which can control electricity, which can effect physical/material objects. – This would be the fabled ‘golden age’ When the majority of sentient beings on this planet begin to understand what life is all about, why we’re here and what ‘God’ might be all about. { This explanation of mine is probably an extremely basic, almost simplistic explanation of what Hindu philosophers and ‘saints’ discovered many thousand years ago, back before Göbekli Tepe days, possibly before Gilgamesh and his gang were here. } — And the ‘Don’t take anything I say as the Ultimate Truth of all existence – Test it – and see if you can punch holes in it – run it up the flagpole and see if anybody drags it down and burns it – and then try to figure out what their agenda might be.’ – cautionary warning label here could be that no giant steps forward by our whole diverse population can be guaranteed when you add the monkey wrench of free will into that equation. – But without that monkey wrench we just might wither and die spiritually. — I should quit here, but let me add that the Hindu philosophers have preserved the idea or ‘knowledge’ that the material universe is the lowest and smallest of several dimensional universes, with the ‘Astral’ or emotional universe being the next finest and much larger universe, where many believe we all go when we dream, — and then the ‘Causal’ or higher intellectual universe is that much finer and larger than the ‘Astral’ universe – and those who have progressed to that level can create anything they want to by exercising the power of their minds —> and there is something beyond the Causal universe that we’re not supposed to be able to comprehend until we graduate from the gross, mind-numbing electro-magnetic disturances that rule the material universe. } <— Could this be a decent hypothesis to test and think about and try to prove or disprove? Rumours from the Golden ages hint that science without an open mind is like trying to walk or run with one leg paralyzed.
melted snow on windshield @ 12:21 pm

– 12:21 pm Atlantic Time – melted snow sliding down windshield. –

Snow not melting.

– 12:25 pm – Snow no longer melting on my windshield. –

12:35 - snowy windshield

– 12:35 pm – Ten minutes after the snow refused to melt on contact, we get this on our windshield –

— WordPress just told me I had to upgrade to the next level of their software and then welcomed me to their ‘latest and greatest’ editing experience – Well —> Let me reinstall the classic editor, because their ‘BLOCKS’ Suck! — { Classic Editor has been reinstalled and is working – Yay – Thank you }   ~~~~~ Namesté, God Bless – Blessed Be – Shalom – Salaam – Aloha – and a whole lot of other expressions I haven’t learned yet — ~~~~~ Jim

Thursday, October 27th, 2016 – Copied from “Dream Journal”

Thursday, October 27th, 2016 — 3°C / 37°F with bright sun and cool air in Atlantic Canada @ 10:44 am — WPKN’s personality and host of ‘Sometimes Classical’ – Richard Epstein has a birthday today —

Peace Tower.

Yoko Ono’s ‘Imagine Peace Tower’ dedicated to the memory of John Lennon. This was tweeted ten days ago on the 17th.

— Couple of dreams this morning.

— One – I woke up hearing a woman’s voice tell me, “I’m with your mother-” I didn’t recognize the voice. ( Mom died last April – I haven’t seen her in any dreams yet. I get the impression that I can feel her presence quite a bit – )

— Two – I was a student in some kind of training program, I thought I recognized several other students there from my past – Women from my class in school that I didn’t believe would want to have much to do with me – There were both women and guys in this group and I thought we were learning something to do with producing video and audio programs for broadcast. I think we were in a ‘break’ room where there were chairs and couches at all different heights – some raised seat things at a height you might expect at a sports bar/restaurant (?) some at normal height, sofas and ‘love seats’ closer to the floor. Some of these seats had their cushions removed, I didn’t see the cushions anywhere – but some of the seats just had something like a steel criss-crossed grid to hold cushions and no cushions. I came back into this room after having some kind of interview with the teachers and/or administrators of this course. I asked several teachers or administrators where their headquarters was, expecting that it would be in New York City, and had to ask at least three times to get an answer I could understand, that answer was “In this city, on South street.” I repeated, ‘South Street?’ and they nodded, affirmatively.

— Getting back into the break room, I had several people congratulating me for something. Asking me if I won. I wasn’t sure what they were referring to, but when one young woman in the class was talking about her project I was thinking I could certainly help her with recording the audio tracks and help her get that as professional sounding as possible.

— Then someone, a guy, who I thought was one of the most important people in the organization was smiling and shaking my hand. He told me he was pretty sure I won the Audi. { I haven’t paid attention to Audi automobiles in the past dozen years, and maybe not so much before that – This was a complete surprise to me. I was thinking of Cathi’s and my recent issues with vehicles and only managed to say, “That would be nice-” }

— And then I woke up with the cat harrassing me because it was time for the pets morning feeding, & of course the cat wanted his treats first.

— Umm — ? —

~~~~~ Jim

We just might survive 2016 —

Sunday, December 11th, 2016 — -19˚C / -3˚F & “Brrrr” in Atlantic Canada @ 8:51 am Atlantic Time — Cuzzin Sarah’s Birthday { heart heart heart } —

Sunrise December 9, 2016

Sunrise Sky Friday, December 9th, 2016 – I couldn’t hold the camera steady enough to get a decent telephoto shot of this. This was me leaning the camera on the top of the chain link fence and holding my breath – What we see and what we can capture with a camera are not always quite the same-

— 2016 has been ‘a Nine year’ numerologically  – [ 2+0+1+6 = 9 ] – which, to people who believe that the numerical values of days and months and years have a psychological and/or spiritual effect on human beings, means it’s a time of ending cycles. Depending on who you talk to or listen to, this is further warped by the number of the month and date – You’re supposed to add the month and date together and use that to modify the year’s number. { So, if you were born on January 1st, you’d add one plus one and hopefully get two and add that to the year’s number, get eleven and either think you were experiencing  a ‘master number’ eleven year or add one and one again and get two and believe you were having yourself a ‘two’ year. – In my case, I was born on September 9th, so 9+9 = 18 and 1+8 = 9 So I might have just lived through most of a double 9 year. Would all my ‘9’ years be doubled? – You’d have to consult with an ‘expert’ numerologist on that one. And of course, you might have to believe that numbers have vibrational power to augment or mess with they human psyche to ‘buy into’ this. Or you could be ‘scientific’ about it and say, “hey, I’m open minded – let’s see if this works-”

— Part of the explanation for what a ‘9’ year is supposed to be all about is that a lot of people will feel like they’ve finished a cycle. And, according to a couple I’ve heard on the radio this last year, a lot of people will figure the cycle they’re finished with is this life on planet earth. You may have noticed that an awful lot of people have checked out/ moved on to hopefully higher planes of existence this last year. My favorite spouse, Cathi, comes home from work too often saying things like, “Hey guess who left us today-?” — Too many wonderful people have moved on to better things this year and left us here, basking in the increasingly toxic atmosphere of whatever is going on in the power struggles of those who believe they should be in charge of the rest of us.

— & I’ve been ‘re-thinking’ a lot of philosophical stuff.

— But I also participated in “NaNoWriMo 2016” – National Novel Writing Month – last month, November – The idea with this is, you commit yourself to writing 50,000 words during the month of November, basically to prove to yourself that you can do that. For the second year in a row I wrote more like 100,000 words on my ‘NaNo Novel’ – & what ya gotta do here is — “Don’t stop and edit it, just get it all down-” and don’t go judging what you’ve got because you can cripple your effort by re-reading and feel the bottom drop out as you tell yourself, “Well, this sux-” and re-play the mind numbing words of everybody who tried to tell you that you’re a worthless piece of doo-doo if you’re not knocking yourself out to live your live by their standards and their rules. And, since they control their game, you can never measure up – hey, they cheat – in their minds they win if they convince you that- “you’ll never amount to anything, so why bother?”

NaNo 2016 Winner Banner

— This year’s ‘Winner’ Banner – tailored to ‘effbook’ standards & size { originally 1500 x 555 pixels }.

— ( I hate sans-serif fonts ) —

NaNo page

— This is the page from the NaNoWriMo web site that tells you you’ve passed their ‘upload your nano novel’ test and should really dig into your pockets and donate whatever $’s you can – They do not engage in the kind of nasty politix that many ‘beedy grastards’ stoop to – they do not try to convince you that you are a worthless piece of doo-doo if you don’t fork over the money you thought you could save to buy one of your favorite people a nice ‘it’s the thought that counts’ holiday presents.

— So I just ‘binge-watched’ all five seasons of ‘Person Of Interest’ on Bell Aliant’s take on a Netflix type service { ‘Crave TeeVee’ } (( And loved the character “Root” who was supposed to be a one episode character but, according to one of the ‘show runners’ had such a cool theme song that they wrote her in as a world class ‘dynamic character’ – Amy Acker’s Voice and expression make me want to ‘create’ and wear a tee shirt that says, “I wasn’t talking to you-” and credit that quote to ‘050313’. ))

— The perfect television programme never made it into any ‘on air’ status or ever looked like anything the ‘-powers who delude themselves into believing they ‘be’-‘ would consider airing for their own gratification and profit… But this one came close.

Moe -- Study in Orange

— Moe — our own little ‘Orange Revolution’ —

— And, once again, Moe gets the last word. I really should record some of our conversations, the plaintive cat, “Maereh Raireh!” and, “Maaw-ou-” &. “Aereh mung muh!” with so many subtle shades of emotional expression. — If I ever completely understand what he’s trying to say, I probably will be ready for a straight jacket – or a halo? —

— pas de schnarr –,

~~~~~ Jim

A Little More Than Half Past October — 2016

Wednesday, October 26th, 2016 — +4˚C / +39˚F — dark and damp in Atlantic Canada @ 7:43 pm — 21 years ago tonight my father died. —

Moe

Yup, our cat really is that big- This is Moe. He took possession of the extra large sized dog bed we bought for Jassper – The bed measures 48 inches long by 33 inches wide. Moe’s a long haired ‘Cat and a half’ but most of what you see here is one pudgy cat.

— I’ve been calling “Pudge” off and on for a couple years now.

— Sigh – There HAS been a lot going on lately –

— I nearly believed I could finish one novel and enter it into a contest, even went and created a cover for it – as per contest rules —>

Book Cover.

Book Cover – Final Design – So far, anyway – This won’t display here at full size –

— I was ‘going gangbusters’ here writing this as a third complete revision – after starting this novel in 1987 – but so many new details have jumped into the story – many of which I’m pretty sure will need to find themselves edited out, but it will then have one heck of a back story – Hint –  There really should be a flying saucer way the bleep in the background on the left somewhere.

Stone Lake in the game world.

Here’s where the above cover ‘photo’ came from – one area in the game world I’ve been building online since 2011 – lately production is on hold waiting for another one of their promised innovations that would make my work a lot easier. This is the “Stone Lake” area inside “Aerendel” on the Hero Cloud. And you’re looking at what you’d see if you had a character there. She’s carrying a Gear Axe that all the builder characters are born with.

— Builder Characters are all that are running around in the game world We’ve been building since 2011. They’re the ones who run around and get out of the way when you’re raising mountains and carving rivers and doing all sorts of esoteric ‘other’ things to each area – Sometimes they fall through the ground and I’ve had a couple disappear completely and had to re-roll or re-create somebody to run around inside the world so we can see how it will look when finished, etc.

Jeep being loaded onto a flatbed.

Somebody finally bought the Jeep.

— I’d quote very early Buffalo Springfield here, “Don’t it leave you with the thought, that perhaps you’ve just been bought?” – We finally had to accept less than half what Cathi wanted for the Jeep – but it’s gone. There’s a strangely vacant spot where the Jeep sat for over a year, waiting for us to either get what we’re owed so we could afford to fix the danged thing ourselves or receive an offer that we could live with. As it is we’re left with a bad taste in our mouths.

Bride and Mothers at September wedding

On the positive side. Cathi’s daughter – Erin – got married on September 4th, to a really nice guy. This is Erin the bride between her mother (Cathi on our right) and her new mother in law (Hala on our left).

— I’ve still got a lot to do with a lot of photos we took at the wedding. And this was complicated by a hard drive with all those photos and videos ‘dying’ after a bit of a power outage here last month. – grrrrrr –

— Um, I might add to this later, we have a dog who needs his evening constitutional –

~~~~~ Jim

– Don’t mention the word – “Autumn”!

- "Not Autumn!" -

HJD-Icon{ by -> H.J.d’Aerendel } – Monday, September 19th, 2016 — 18°C / 64°F and foggy in my little corner of Atlantic Canada @ 9:14 am—

bicycle - decorated with flowers

This is from Austria – Yum?
Cat Driving a Car - "Off to work"
“If you don’t like the way I drive stay the hell off the sidewalk!”

— I am not the world’s biggest fan of tweeted and effbooked pets, but I couldn’t resist this guy —

retweeted-dogTakingSelfie

Don’t tell Sophie Turner – while looking for Emmy stuff to tweet and retweet last night I saw this and had to steal it. — Thank You – 🙂

— I don’t know, maybe I’ve eaten too much genetically modified high fructose corn syrup lately and it’s completely freakin destroyed my brain – but today I actually wanted to do up a blog post of this stuff –

 

Maine Coon Cat

My friend the novelist asked me to proof-read his latest effort – He inserted a Maine Coon Cat into one nearly surreal landscape – I put that down and checked the internet and – I’m being haunted. 🙂

— ¿¿¿ Help – The Tweet-Us-Sphere is reading my mind and manifesting schnarr from my imagination — ???

 

Woman in a yellow dress dancing?

& If today’s theme here is remarkable photographs – we’ll have to add ‘Remarkably beautiful
Expressions’ to that title.

— I may have stolen this from another tweeter — but I’m giving her credit by leaving her “@info+etc.” intact – so maybe she won’t want to crucify me?

 

— I hope I spelled her name right, I need to go get my eyes checked. & ‘sans-serif’ fonts are the worst —— Guten Tag –,

— h.j.d’A —


Monday, September 19th, 2016 —

— Monday, September 19th, 2016 — 18°C / 64°F & Foggy @ 7:54 am in Atlantic Canada —

Tat gets an Emmy.

Tatiana Maslany won the Emmy for Best woman actor in a dramatic series last night.

— Some of our favourites won big at the Emmy’s last night, Tatiana M. (Libra) won Best Woman Actress in a dratmatic series [ title warped by me because I’m sensitive to sensitive sensibilities [[ insert smiley stickin its tongue out here 😉 ]] ] Rami Malek (Taurus) won for best male actor in a dramatic series. & Game of Thrones won 3 Emmy’s last night [ added to the 9 they were awarded for artistic and technical schnarr earlier ] : (1) Best Writers for an episode and (2) Best Director for the same episode [ Battle of the Bastards ] and (3) Best Dramatic Series. 🙂

Beautiful Hobbit-Friendly Countryside.

Beautiful countryside, I’m not sure where –

— Looks like a wonderful, Hobbit-Friendly countryside, somewhere —

Good Night Twitter - Sweet Dreams?

— And a cool “Good Night Twitter” sunset —

— & There was an investigative program on the CBC last night investigating the evils of sugar. The conspiratorial cover-up of the ill effects of sugar preceded the nasty cover up of the ill effects of smoking tobacco. U.S. FDA has to know about this and I don’t think it could have happened without FDA complicity: Diabetes, Heart Disease, Cancer, Obesity, Alzheimers, ‘and more’ can be attributed to the FDA allowing sugar and *especially lately, Genetically Modified Ingredients, ESPECIALLY HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP!* – to remain available on supermarket shelves & in everything most ‘Americans’ (& Canadians) eat.  They interviewed researchers in one study that have found that the typical “North American / Western Diet” — especially over the last ten years with the proliferation of genetically modified high fructose corn syrup — activates Alzheimers Disease and causes brain damage – severely effecting memory. So, if the punishment fits the crime — somebody should incarcerate Bill Gates and force feed him large quatities of junk food, insuring gastro-intestinal distress, Diabetes, and nerve damage, so that he will be forced to reincarnate as a brain damaged infant with severe health issues, live in  extreme poverty with a whole lot of saturnian limitations everywhere he looks. — Schnarr! —

— Abboo Nice Day –,

~~~~~ Jim

Where Did August Go?

Monday Morning, August 29th, 2016 — 24°C / 75°F & Bright sun shining through humid atmosphere beneath a mostly cloudy sky at the moment in our little corner of Atlantic Canada @ 12:14 pm—

Spectacular Sky.

Friday Evening – Filling our gas tank just before 8 pm – We were facing a really spectacular sky. I think I captured a decent portion of that here-

— We’re getting ready for Cathi’s daughter’s Wedding – Went and had some Viet Namese noodles and a darned good chicken rice dish, then went to top off the gas tank – hopefully before the larcenous gas dealers up here raised their weekend prices through the roof – And saw some spectacular cloud formations – like the one above.

Spiralling art installaation.

From Saturday the 27th, This spiraling circular artistic expression is behind the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton is by Dennis Oppenheim and titled, “Arriving Home”.

— You can probably see what used to be a train bridge in the center of the circle. That bridge has been reworked with a wooden deck and become part of the extensive system of walking trails around the city of Fredericton, and throughout New Brunswick. You can probably walk or bicycle from all corners of this province to all other cities and points of interest along the way on those trails.

St John River, looking North and East.

Looking North East across the St John River from a walking trail behind the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.

— I remember a friend talking about art classes and how a line like the fence in this photograph would pull the viewer right into the photo or the painting. Saturday was a beautiful summer day with lower humidity than the previous week and a sky like the ones I used to appreciate in my summers in Vermont as a teenager visiting my grandparents.

Glaciated rocks on the bank of the St John River.

I’ve come to appreciate glaciated rocks up here since I came to visit and then applied for permanent residence and then citizenship. Here’s some of those glaciated rocks, I think.

— There were large chunks of lighter coloured glaciated rocks defining a boundary and discouraging four-wheelers from wrecking the grass inside a park in Arnprior, Ontario, where we used to live.

"Fine German Bankery".

And this is a “Fine German Bakery” that also advertises Viet Namese goodies. We never noticed this bakery before road crews and other construction workers have been working on the road and a now-vacant lot just east of here (Just out of the photo to the left).

— And, walking around town on Saturday afternoon we noticed a couple things we missed before, like this “Fine German Bakery”.

— And this is probably enough for now –

~~~~~ Jim

Saturday Morning — 3 am?

{  Good Morning – This would be my first post here – I must be doing something right – Jim W. has invited me over here to post anything I want to, any time I want to – He doesn’t do that with just anybody — Should I run away screaming? }

= = = = =

Saturday Morning, August 20th, 2016 — 12°C / 53°F & “Dark” in my little corner of Atlantic Canada @ 3:02 am—

Nice sunrise or sunset - might be photoshopped.

“I’m always looking for new ways to see my world. Norman Vincent Peale was not my favourite philosopher. Sometimes he makes sense.” — h.j.d’A — & now I’m quoting myself —

— “Change your thoughts and you change your world.” Norman Vincent Peale.

— Changing habitually resonating thoughts and thought patterns is not all that easy. If you’re fighting against what you believe are your own negative thoughts – you can try to combine those thoughts with the desire to improve and become more positive. Emotions happen quicker and more deeply that what we call “our thoughts” in the human psyche. Our ‘Normal Waking Mind’ tries to define our multi-dimensional world in two dimensional terms. Don’t give up. The negative, “You can’t win-“, “Give up-“, “You’ll never amount to anything-” thoughts that may have been planted in your young mind by egotistical people who don’t know better — are lying to you.  — We have no limitations. We are alive here now to prove to ourselves that “Mind Over Matter” is Reality – Your indomitable Spirit, whatever you choose to call it – can overcome anything. { This has been the voice of experience. I seem to be unusually optimistic about this life and the human race tonight/very early this morning. }

— I read a quote on-line earlier, meant for writers – “If writing your book doesn’t keep you up at night – how can you expect that reading it will keep your readers awake at night, too?” { Or something quite near that if I haven’t remembered it 1,000% correctly – } & I think that was James A. Michener who I’ve just nearly quoted. But I’m pretty sure I got the spirit of his intent there –

Tweet about the plight of sockeye salmon in B.C.

Depressing news about the health of salmon in British Columbia.

— & Now – the depressing stuff. While politicians are fighting against what would be the best for the greatest number of people in favour of their fighting to fill their pockets with currency and their egos with delusions of power – They’re helping the ‘bad guys’ kill the planet and destroy our future.

— Schnarr! —

Native American / First Nations person's photo portrait and an anti-Trump message.

“Hey – You – Trump – Don’t like immigrants? Then get your immigrant butt out of our lands and back to where-ever you came from.”

— I don’t subscribe/follow to all of the above twitter accounts – my friend —djo— does. Some of the not-so-happy stuff he retweeted last night struck a chord – so here they are –

— And Now — For something completely different —>

Aliens in Utah? With English Translation.

“Aliens in Utah?”

A ‘Clairvoyant’ I met told a hippy who recounted seeing weird monsters standing next to people he knew – and he knew they were real live human beings – were not hallucinations. The ‘monsters’ were beings in another dimension, right here beside us – and some of them can influence our thoughts, feelings, even pressure us to go get drunk and pass out so they might jump into our bodies and have fun at our expense. “If this scares you, good. – Stop taking drugs, stop drinking alcoholic beverages, avoid any medicines that make you feel loopy or woozy – Pray a lot and hang around with positive, highly spiritual people.” — I waited until the doubting hippy left and asked that ‘clairvoyant’ where I could find any highly positive, spiritual people to hang around with and she wrote down a couple of book titles, said I should read them, and talk to her next time I saw her.

  • “The Sufis” – by Idries Shah
  • “In Search of the Miraculous” – by P.D. Ouspensky
  • “Autobiography of a Yogi” – by Paramahansa Yogananda

— I treasured all three – Reading Ouspensky’s book was a challenge – I felt like I had to restructure my mind and brain in order to stay with it and understand what he was saying. It felt like an exercise in overcoming normal human limitations.

— I read everything I could get my hands on about the Sufis and felt like they were under-cover agents for sanity in a very insane world.

— Then, reading the “Autobiography of a Yogi” felt like connecting with the ultimately merciful, and loving essence of the Heart of all Creation and made me feel like I was in constant contact with everything worth living for, no matter how strongly I doubted that.

— We’re here to get as close to “God” as we can and to do everything we can to help everything positive in all of Creation manifest Heaven on Earth.

— { Told you I was feeling unusually optimistic – hope I haven’t bored you to death – }

— h.j.d’a —

Copied & Pasted from Radio Free Earth News:

Tuesday, August 9th, 2016 — 23°C / 73°F & pleasant in Atlantic Canada @4:30 pm — It’s our friend Nina’s birthday today (and, coincidently, her twin brother Bobby’s birfday too – funny how that seems to happen. ) —

Our good friend, Doug is sharing his odd a-political insights with us here – And even included a tribute to our dearly departed bengal cat, Domino, sniff sniff – :

= = = = =

Oh Dangit – Too Much Good Information That Needs Sharing To Let Me Sleep –

Tuesday, August 9th, 2016 — 85°F / 29°F — Too hot with too much bright sunlight in Ithaca, NY @ 1:45 pm —

Ireland Jailed 3 Banksters. Why Haven't We.
Ireland Jailed 3 Banksters. Why haven’t we?

— If I took the time to get large screen shots of everything I thought was important in news feeds and twitter feeds today I’d never get to sleep.

US Intelligents reports that WikiLeaks is not an arm of Russian Intelligence.
U.S. Intelligence says WikiLeaks is not a political arm of Russian Intelligence.

— Those who believe – “It’s not illegal if you don’t get caught” want to vilify all good reporters. WikiLeaks is not your enemy. Dishonest, megalamaniacal, micro-managing – manipulative, power-crazy politicians ARE.

Krishnamurti quote. Labels are violence.
– Wish I’d said that – [ Wow ]

— Defining yourself is an act of violence? Holy Cow! Why didn’t I think of that? Calling yourself a Republican is vilifying all Democrats? Calling yourself a Democrat is demonizing all Republicans? “Ego is the human soul desperately trying to believe that it is limited to a human body and one short lifetime” < Jim Wellington > – That’s how I got mixed up with all this blogging and stuff – I’d always been a writer, I thought it was an obsession – This guy muttered one phrase at a writers’ workshop and blew a thousand of my most worrisome misconceptions all to hell. – No, I’m a truth seeker, embracing any truth I can verify and wanting to share that with all the rest of us lost and exhausted pilgrims desperately hungry and thirsting for Truth, Mercy, Spirituality, Personal Evolution – This is not an obsession, it’s a calling. I want to share everything that makes me feel good about being alive with everybody else who’s starving for peace of mind.

"Republican Refugees seek asylum in Democratic Party.
– This might be politically motivated nonsense, but it’s too funny to pass up.

— If reformed Republicans really want believe in themselves again and sleep nights (or days if their biological clocks are half as mixed up as mine is) – They’d be better off seeking asylum in the Green Party. Remember a Y2K bumper sticker with an animal that was half Donkey and half Elephant – a two headed ‘push me pull you’? Calling them “Republicrats”? Why keep voting for the same old [stinky stuff]? Haven’t we had enough of this nonsense? My wonderful, adorable daughter says, “Jeeze – it looks like everybody’s trying to drive back all human progress to the madness that started the first world war-” And she’s too young to remember the first Desert Storm idiocy.

Caterpillars can't understand butterflies.
“When she became a butterfly all the caterpillars shunned her-” ?

— Caterpillars can’t understand butterflies. Morons with their heads stuck up their Ice-Holes can’t understand anyone who isn’t as stupid and destructive and greedy as they are. Donald J Trump does not have a prayer of being able to understand anybody who believes in Bernie Sanders [ at least, not in this life ]. People who believe they have a right to destroy everybody else’s quality of living in pursuit of a little profit will never understand conservationists. Frackers will never understand anyone who wants to be able to drink pure, unpoisoned water. Oil Company executives will never want to understand why anybody would ever want to share renewable energy that costs almost nothing and provides better energy, more and better jobs, healthier people and a lot less stress than gasoline, gas and oil – { at least, not until it’s too late and they realize they’ve shot themselves in their own crotches }.

Lake Tahoe
On a less serious note –

— I thought it might be a good time to post a photo of a beautiful world that is not yet spoiled and poisoned by the [ snar ] coming to California from the Fukushima disaster. People who are not muzzled by lying unethical political motivation are warning that Fukushima’s radiation has already poisoned too much of the Pacific Ocean, we might already be beyond any hope of undoing the effects of some of the deadliest poison known to humans – { unless those rumoured aliens/angels come to our aid with their radiation eating technologies. Pray for help, guys – }

Leopards in Botswana.
This is a tribute to Jim and Cathi’s cat, Domino.

— Rest In Peace, Domino – you taught me that cats can be fun to play with.

Huge Hungarian Guard Dog
Now that’s one serious looking guard dog. { he said, flawlessly elucidating the painfully obvious – }

— Like I said, there’s much too much important looking information flying around the Tweet-Us-Sphere to ignore today. Most of it is probably based in truth. But, like always, don’t take my word for it. Get out there and investigate! Use your brain before it doesn’t even help your cranium in its function as hat rack.

— Please, God, Can I get some rest now?

——— djo ———

Saturday – Thunder Storms – Power Outage – Quacking Up & Schnarr Like That –

Saturday, August 6th, 2016 — 18˚C / 64˚F & “Dark” @11:59 pm in Atlantic Canada —

Puddles

At 4:26 pm Outside the Regent Street Mall – The rain had all but stopped, but dark clouds persisted.

— We stood around at the Koodo Kiosk inside the mall for more than half an hour while the Kiosk manager was on hold with Koodo support, trying to find out how to resolve a minor problem – After we changed to a minimum amount of data per month option the app that allows for data beyond wifi connections wouldn’t work, and as a matter of fact – was not in evidence at all on my Galaxy s5 Neo. [ schnarr ] As soon as the customer service rep picked up and verified my existence and plan options – the power went out in Fredericton during a heavy duty thunder storm. – we could not get through until we got all the way home and had electric come back on there – and at 8 something pm – the power went off at something like 3:45 pm – I called Koodo customer service from home and waddled through their automated greeting, punched “0” for ‘talk to a human’ and heard “Thank you for calling Koodo customer service, as a point of information, we’re closed right now, but you can call back during normal business hours-” and — paraphrased — by the way, you can get answers to all kinds of things at our web-site —- so I woke up a computer and managed to find their site and by the way, You CANNOT get a satisfactory answer to anything but really fundamental questions like, ‘where is my on/off button?’ — Grrrrrrrr! — But the manager at the Kiosk was really good and helpful and kept apologizing for taking so long, he said he checked out an employees message thing and everybody was complaining about long waiting times for customer service reps.

Nesting Ospreys on a platform built for them.

This is an Osprey nest along a walking path on our way home. In a 4x close up – Everything has a slight, clear ‘aura’ Especially when the photos are displayed full size.


— We had to get a couple things on the way home, and discovered a couple stores that had power, and heard about an Osprey Nest just down the walking trail a couple hundred yards ( okay the Canadians called it ‘meters’ not yards ) So we had to walk down the path and find them. They sang to us and we sang back. I have no idea whether we were admitting to being idiots in Osprey language or anything, but they didn’t attack us, or laugh at us like some crows do around here, so I guess we didn’t tell them their mother wears combat boots or anything like that.

Osprey plaque.

Here’s the plaque near the Ospreys to give you something to read and tell you about what kind of birds you can almost see from where the plaque sits.

— There’s a piece of plastic in front of the plaque, so the colours look faded.

Ducks Unlimted sign.

We also passed the Ducks Unlimited Canada Centre on our way home. I conned Cathi into stopping to get a couple photos. Some of my quacky friends will probably appreciate that.

— This quack’s for you – “Tommy Y” 😉 —

Ducks Unlimited Logo.

Ducks Unlimited Logo – in Iron.

— Quack quack quack quack quack!

— duh — that should be enough damage for tonight — I gotta lotta more photos to pop in here later.

~~~~~ Jim

 

Monday, Monday –

Monday, July 25th, 2016 — 29˚C / 84˚F — sunny, muggy, hot & sticky @ 12:56 pm in Atlantic Canada —

Clouds over intersection

Of course I couldn’t get the best details from Saturday’s very interesting sky – I tried messing with exposure, contrast and saturation – and this is as good as I could get it –

— There were some amazing cloud details on Saturday – but they wouldn’t translate to decent photos of amazing cloud details – grumble grumble.

Cathi looking at her cell phone.

Cathi playing Ingress while everybody else in Fredericton was running all around town looking for Pokemon to capture, playing Pokemon Go –

— We almost didn’t cross the bridge into Fredericton South, but shopping for end of sales bargains at garden shops was hot work so we crossed the bridge and tested the ice cream at the ‘Happy Baker’ across the street from Digital World  and a stone’s throw from the big Atlantic Superstore. We saw dozens of people walking around with their eyes on their cell phones: couples, families, concentrating nerds and smiling hockey players – Cathi checked her cell phone and grinned, said she could feel less self conscious about playing “Ingress” than before, with everybody wandering around looking for Pokemon to capture – So she activated the ingress app and was puzzled to find a couple portals within a hundred meteres of where we were sitting. We drove around and recharded a couple portals for friendly players and discovered a portal that had never been captured before. Cathi captured it. Then she linked a bunch of portals and gained a level. The ‘good guys’ [ the alignment Cathi supports and plays as ] are a little stronger and a little more protected from the ‘others’ now.

Walking Trail Map of an area of Fredericton.

– This map was one of the portals we went loking for – hard to find when it was only a couple meters from us.

— I could not see the obscentiy that was scrawled / painted on this map and then cleaned up when I took the photo. & This was not the portal that Cathi discovered and captured before anybody else knew it was there. We wandered around a bit longer than we expected to and Cathi was fairly excited about gaining her level and sharing this adventure with me while we grinned at all the Pokemon Go teams looking like accidents about to collide with each other all around us. 🙂

Jassper determined to tak time to sniff traces of his neighbours.

– ‘Walking The Dog .101’ –

— Jassper is getting better at taking us for his daily walks. He no longer flops down every couple steps and refuses to budge until we can psyche him into thinking there just might be something interesting to sniff just a little farther up the road, or up the side of the road – which is where we try to keep him. He does, however need to assert himself and plop down and get a better chance to sniff some trace of somebody or other who might have walked by in the past day or so.

Jassper hamming it up for the camera

– ‘Walking The Dog .102’ – “Aren’t Ithe cutest thing you could ever fall in love with?”

— & here we are several yards farther on up the road. Cathi keeps hoping we can get a photo of Jassper rolling around on his back with his feet in the air, looking like a horse instead of just his ‘puppy horse’ self here. He seems to know what we’re about to do and rolls to his stomach and smiles for the camera before we can get it fired up and ready to catch him at his horse-like antics.

Cathi nearly having her arm yanked off as Jassper decided there was something back there that he absoutely needed to check out much more thoroughly.

– ‘Advanced Dog Walking .301’ – There really is a dog back there in the dark –

— here’s what happens when Jassper decides he really really needs to check something out more closely back there – He’ll stop, plant his legs and nearly pull your arm off- Cathi has actually taken a step back to keep her arm in its socket here. And she’s laughing about ‘who’s walking who here’. Her son is just out of the photo on our left. We have proof, his arm actually shows up in one photo where you can’t see the dog at all and Cathi did not look very happy about nearly being dragged backward down the street by a dog who wanted to assert himself just before I pushed the shutter button.

— Sigh? –,

~~~~~ Jim

Sunday In The Rain

Sunday, July 17th, 2016 — 21˚C / 69˚F & Raining @ 3:45 pm in Atlantic Canada — Today would have been Aunt Val’s Birthday —

Cathi in the rain.

Cathi, Standing in the rain, Taking a break from a gardening spurt.

— We dashed off to a quick trip to the NorthSide Market and a quick detour to the Atlantic Superstore on the way home. Cathi noticed some plants on sale as their Gardening Centre had closed down for the season. When we got home we carried our reduced priced treasures around and put them where they looked happy and will give them permanent homes in the soil later. Cathi also spread some epsom salts around her tomatoes, which we hear is something that tomato plants love.

Deer Hill in the rain.

This is what the hill were the deer come to visit in the winter looks like on a warm rainy day in mid July.

— This hill, which you might remember, I measured earlier this spring and reported that it was 12 feet from our porch window in Cathi’s ‘Zen Corner’ to where the deer happily munch on oats, stale bread and apple cores in the winter. The shot looked a lot better with lots of hints of purple flowers and other bits of colour that did not quite translate into the photo that emerged from the digital realms here. The Evergreens look a lot more silvery here than I noticed ‘in real life’.

Smoke Tree with fuzzy blooms.

Our Happy little Smoke Tree Is happily taking in this afternoon’s shower.

— & Our Smoke Tree is doing well this season.

Upstairs at the Coffee Mill.

Yesterday, We had brunch at the Coffee Mill restaurant on Prospect Street. One of the waitresses on duty when we got there asked if we’d like to sit upstairs. It was hard for me to see up there with a very bright sun beating down on the outside balcony about ten yards from our table. But this is what it looked like inside.

— The food was excellent but, with the very bright sun outside effecting my glasses I had a hard time seeing what was in front of me inside. (Eep?)

Blurry Error Message "The Internet Has stopped."

Scary Error Message, “The Internet Has Stopped.” (sorry about the blur-)

— Cathi has her new-ish Samsung Galaxy Something phone set to connect to the internet through wireless networks rather than gobble up tons of minutes and data charges getting messages the old-fashioned way (?)  Yesterday at Brunch she received an interesting error message and couldn’t remember the new phone’s screen capture routine, so I volunteered my newer cell and we thought this would be readable, the tiny window looked like we held steady enough. But “Unfortunately, Internet has stopped” looks an awful lot like the messages we’ve been getting from our internet freedom watchdog group. & yes, we’d all be in shock if somebody blew up the internet ‘for real’.

— Um, this is probably enough blogging damage for today –,

~~~~~ Jim

Walkin the dog & fixin the porch

Monday, July 4th, 2016 — 26˚C / 79˚F @ 1:31 pm – The sun is shining and it was pleasantly cool earlier — Today is our friends, Matt Kantrowitz’s and Nora Z’s Birthday —

Not Level porch/deck

“Before” – At around twenty minutes after 4 pm yesterday.

— At around 4:20 pm yesterday, Cathi thought she would have liked to have leveled the wooden deck while she’d been on vacation this last week, when it rained nearly every day – and was much too hot to contemplate major exertion when it wasn’t raining. The deck is outside what she calls the front door and what I tink of as the enclosed porch on the west side of the house. The door is on the north side of the porch and you can probably see how slanted it had become. I think it was fairly level when we moved in almost three years ago.

— We gritted our teeth and went out with a couple prybars and fulcrums and discovered that it wasn’t as hard to move the deck as we had feared. It was no snap, but it wasn’t that bad.

— We did manage to move the deck out beyond where it had been sinking into the sandy soil against the house. Then we tossed a bunch of gravel and moved two of those cement paving squares you can see at the edge of the porch – moved them up and against the house to support the deck’s eastern edge. (which would be on the left side of what you can see above- )

Porch much more level. Cathi clowning.

“After” — 5:15 pm.

— And, by 5:15 – { it felt like it took us a lot longer than that – } The deck was a lot more level { “Good enough for government work-” my friends in the USA used to say. } Our muscles were a little sore – but we had this sense of accomplishment, like we’d accomplished at least one impossible task before supper time. 🙂 –

Jassper lying down, Cathi scratching her head.

“Walking the dog” –

Jassper, with his aggravated arthritis and pulled ligament in one hind leg, lives for his walks up the street, where he gets to sniff everything and possibly catch up on who’s (“who” being the 4 legged citizens of this neighbourhood- ) been where, and what they’ve been eating or drinking lately?  He only gets so far before the pain gets to him and he pulls back on his leash or just plops on the ground and nearly yanks us off our feet.

Jassper on the ground again, Cathi slightly frustrated.

This photo was taken, probably about ten yards or meters from the photo above it. Jassper only got that far up here at the ‘top’ of the street, where there is a circle for cars to turn around.

Trees in shadow, bending over a trail.

Trees Bowing over the path through the woods.

—  Trees on both sides of the trail are bending over/reaching over the trail – that we’ve heard goes from the end of our street here up and around and ends at the ‘Smart Centre’ with its Walmart (Booo – Hiss – ) Canadian Tire ( if they allow their mechanics to cheat their customers I have no use for Canadian Tire Stores. [ a kind of big box hardware store with a bigger automotive department than any Walmart I’ve ever heard of ] ) And a Kent building supply place ( sort of a Canadian grown Home Despot 😉 store ). A couple other smaller retail outlets, like a dollar store and maybe a GNC nutrition place have ‘grown’ there since 2013 when we moved to this city.

— At 8 pm-ish, the shadows were too deep and on the wrong side of what I was trying to photograph here, I’ll have to try again under different natural lighting conditions to get this right.

— So, um, we accomplished two impossible tasks this late afternoon and evening. We leveled the porch/deck, and we walked Jassper all the way up and around the end of the street and all the way back home – which has only happened twice since we were told he has a prescription for exercising at least twenty minutes to half an hour every day. He loves his walks, it just hurts too much –  but he is showing improvement – whether it’s the medication or the exercise or the fish oil ‘sandwiches’ he gets once a day.

— Yay? –,

~~~~~ Jim

 

Summer is here —

Monday, June 20, 2016 — 25˚C / 77˚F — sunny & muggy @4:30 pm in Atlantic Canada — I think I remember hearing somebody say that Summer arrives shortly after 7 pm Atlantic Time —

- "Walking" Jassper at 9:15 pm. Jassper has arthritis. We're supposed to be taking him for a walk for at least 20 minutes every day. Here, he made it about halfway up the slight hill on our street before he had to plunk down and rest from his pain. Happy walks and sniffing every squar millimeter in his neighbourhood aren't quite as much fun as they used to be, but if we can keep this up he probably will get better at it again.

– “Walking” Jassper at 9:15 pm. Jassper has arthritis. We’re supposed to be taking him for a walk for at least 20 minutes every day. Here, he made it about halfway up the slight hill on our street before he had to plunk down and rest from his pain. His happy walks and sniffing every square millimeter of his neighbourhood aren’t quite as much fun as they used to be, but if we can keep this up he probably will get better at it again.

I watched the Canadian dollar [ the ‘Looney’ ] rise a little, fall a little then rise again today – It ended last Friday at 0.7753 U$ dollars, then began this morning @ .07808 and rose to .7819 and fell back down to .7807 — Global News [ the Canadian television network ] reported that it finished the day @ .7807 – & CBC business news online said it was at .7815 at around 9 pm.  — So I guess you can reasonably assume that today wasn’t overwhelmingly interesting if I’m writing something like that here.

I did manage to finish screwing the plywood roof over the frame & beneath the heavy duty tarp [ the tarp that our neighbour gave us after I mentioned that we’d probably have to go out and buy one to protect the bare wood from the elements over the winter – one day this wonderful heavy duty tarp showed up beside the tool shed. 🙂 ] And I came through that with a thick layer of sweat weighing me down about ten pounds heavier than I started out. So I took a shower and sat near the air conditioner and watched last night’s brutal battle between Ramsay Bolton’s forces and Jon Snow & the Wildlings over again – then conked out and slept until something like 4:30 pm.

But at least I accomplished one impossible thing today. Finished the plywood roof all by myself without killing myself in the process.

And we had a nice talk with our neighbour, Connie Pond, when we were starting out to give our enthusiastic Jassper his adventure up and down the street. Apparently – the chipmunks that inhabit our stone wall have been planting oat seeds above their little caves – maybe they brought the oats home and thought they’d save them for a rainy day – then forgot where they left them? Connie is impressed.

— enough blogging for today?

~~~~~ Jim

 

St Mary’s Powwow

Sunday, June 19, 2016 — +31˚C / +87˚F & Oppresively hot out there at 4:38 pm in Atlantic Canada —

2016-06-19-StMarysPowWowDancing04

We finally got to one of the Powwows that St Mary’s First Nation holds every year around Father’s Day. We should have brought a lot more money with us. I was impressed with the dancers, especially the happy youngsters.

I'm not sure whether the videographer was with any of the local media outlets or there on his own, but he looked like he knew what he was doing and This photo gives me an opportunity so show a wide shot of the field and the dancers.

I’m not sure whether the videographer was with any of the local media outlets or there on his own, but he looked like he knew what he was doing and This photo gives me an opportunity so show a wide shot of the field and the dancers.

Another photo of the dancers in the field. The drums were amplified through a sound system and filled the area with their infnectious beat. Nobody was complaining about that.

Another photo of the dancers in the field. The drums were amplified through a sound system and filled the area with their infectious beat. Nobody was complaining about that.

Connecting the new Cell phone to this computer was aggravating and extremely counter intuitive. I had to give up on following directions and after I thought about pitching the computer out the nearest window something ‘fell into place’ – and actually worked. I could then up or download the photos into iPhoto ( not the latest and most aggravating Mac ) – only after I quit out of iPhoto and started it up again. That reminded me of the jerk in a commercial for dishwashing snar who swears up and down the woman will never get her pot clean if she doesn’t scrub it first, then claims that he’d told her that her pot would come out perfectly clean and shiny without scrubbing – Give up – think about shooting a computer and of course it snaps to attention and completes the recently impossible task, and tries to smile at you and claim, “See – all you had to do was follow my directions and you would have no problem at all – ”  [ grrrrrrr……. ]

And the first photo I took with my new Cell phone was of Cathi trying to get out of the parking lot with a bunch of drivers lost in their own day dreams and visions of getting home in time for dinner.

And the first photo I took with my new Cell phone was of Cathi trying to get out of the parking lot with a bunch of drivers lost in their own day dreams and visions of getting home in time for dinner. Full sized the picture is so detailed you can see each raindrop that fell on the driver’s door within the last six months.

 

— Yum —

~~~~~ Jim

Monday – Bring the Cat to the Hairdresser’s Day –

Monday, May 9th, 2016 — Colder than usual — 7˚C/ 44˚F @ 6:21 pm on a day that’s been on and off sunny and dark and splashed half a dozen rain drops on the windshield every now and then in Atlantic Canada — on uncle by marriage – Ed Conroy’s Birthday.

Moe

This is Moe – the 25 pound ‘Cat and a half’ – after his trip to the hair dresser’s. He’s checking out his cat treats, or maybe looking for fragments of cat treats he might have missed – and looks like a beast from a science fiction novel I read once.

Moe Hair.

No, this is not what’s left after you put a cat through a shredder – this is a small portion of Moe’s hair on the groomer’s floor.

Moe checkind his bowl of cat food.

– A little dark, I should have told the flash to do its thing, but this is one more angle of our newly trimmed ‘trouble is his middle name’ orange cat, Moe, as he’s looking at his dry cat food and trying to decide whether to shred us in our sleep for putting him through the indignity of having his matted hair shaved or let us live another day, possibly because we come through with some decent cat treats now and then.

— The round flower pot to the right and almost even with Moe’s nose is catnip that Cathi planted. We have more than once found Moe passed out cold with his arms around that flower pot and his nose deep in the leaves. We have had to hold our breath a couple times and pray that he was still breathing. Yup – he’s still alive.

— & Game Of Thrones Stuff —

— Should our Game Of Thrones Banner feature an orange cat wearing a purple cape?

— And – Regarding The Game Of Thrones last night, might be the quote of the week: When asked if he was still himself after having appeared very dead after being murdered by possibly well meaning ‘brothers’ of the Night’s Watch – Jon Snow replied, “I think so, don’t burn my body just yet.”

— & in the Game of Thrones speculation department – Bran and the Three Eyed Raven guy were watching an unven battle in which two Targaryen swordsmen { especially one knight – after his companion was pierced rather soundly – } nearly killed off something like eight Northmen, including Eddart Stark. Howland Reed, who we all thought was struck down, stabbed the Targaryen Knight (Ser Arthur Dayne?) in the back when it looked like Eddart Stark was about to lose his life – Then we heard a woman scream in a tower behind where this lopsided fight took place – and the Three Eyed Raven guy would not let Bran follow Eddart up into the tower ( not yet ? ) telling him that if he lingered too long in his visions he might never get back to his body — I’m wondering if that scream was Lyanna ( Eddart’s [ ‘Ned’s ] sister ) giving birth to Jon Snow – or both Jon and Meera? You wouldn’t believe the speculation going on around that one.

— & Yes, I agree – There may be way too much to cover for HBO to finish off the entire story in seven seasons.

— & I have too much to say, but I’m aching and tired and need to rest – So – “Au plaisir -”

~~~~~ Jim